"Phantom Sensation" Gaming Technology Could Make You Feel The Action

Here's a crazy one that could change your eagerness about buying up the next Resident Evil and playing it with all of the lights shut off. While peripheral companies have long tried to come up with ways to make titles more immerse, many of those options have fallen flat. Between rumble packs and full-on suits that one could wear to "experience" the feeling of a game, it's just difficult to translate. But a new technology coming from researchers at the University of Electro-Communications may be the jolt that hardcore gamers have been waiting for.

Over at the uni, a tech called "phantom sensation" is being talked up, and the applications are obvious. The test setup is a modified Wii console, and with a rigged-up controller, vibration sensors are triggered to rumble in certain patterns on the top and bottom of one's hand. Basically, if the rumble starts on top and moves to the bottom, you "feel" as if your hand was pierced. On a larger scale, this could be used to make people feel just about anything.

Things like this are always easier to understand in video form, so have a look. And get ready to have your Kinect and Wii MotionPlus bow down at the future of "interactive" gaming.